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THE LOWER DEPTHS
by Maxim Gorky
Adapted and Directed by Phil Willmott
Presented by The Steam Industry
Finborough Theatre
118 Finborough Rd London SW10 9ED
Call +44 (0) 20 0870 4000 838 Tickets £8 - £12
Tues – Sat 7.30pm; Sun Mats 3.30pm
Running time 1 hr 50 mins with intermission
Through 9 June 2007
Low Life
The dim and dusty auditorium bled from the stage of The Steam Industry production at the tiny Finborough Theatre. As if to emphasise the barren nature of the life being brought to us, there was no atmospheric Russian music. Just an uneasy silence.
Maxim Gorky’s masterpiece of the lives of the winos, whores and general misfits, the forgotten, downtrodden, and penniless occupiers of a fin de siecle Russian doss house, was a chronicle of the human detritus the writer lived among in his early twenties. Risking the close attentions of the Czarist authorities, the play premiered at the Moscow Arts Theatre in 1902, largely through the influence of Chekhov who mentored the young vagrant’s writing.
The grey, angular set by Nicky Bunch was imaginatively lit by Hansjorg Schmidt. A self conscious opening narration gave way to an abrupt opening and it was not long before it was apparent that there would be no attempt at Stanislavsky realism here. Gorky’s simmering subterranean world of life in the city’s bowels was shaken by a brisk, declamatory, sometimes highly projected playing of a company eschewing any intimacy that the theatre and closed environment seemed to want.
Time passed agreeably enough, but the actors’ apparent desire to perform and impress appeared uppermost. The missing inner life of the characters left one thinking that the surface of the play’s potential had barely been scratched. For if it is not deeply about people it is about little else. Perhaps, having written the adaptation, director Phil Willmott was reluctant to risk getting bogged down, for he sacrificed all on the altars of energy and entertainment. The resultant non-stop one-note pace of the evening left one unmoved by the lives laid bare, with the actors at times indulging in some uncalled for grandstanding.
Richard Gofton as the Old Traveller brought a welcome human touch to the party, and Charlie Watts as the thief was believable and most comfortable with the modern reading of old lines. All had their moments, but little more. Realities of life on the fringe in London do not permit of the months of developmental work that the Moscow Arts theatre would have brought to bear on the piece, but all the same one was left wondering what a more sensitive, creative working process might have brought about.
There was no lack of regional British accents to indicate the disparate origins of the protagonists. I heard South London, Geordie (N.E. England), Scots, and Liverpool among others, but the strange alienation from and lack of empathy with the poor unfortunates meant that the people of Gorky’s world were not particularly moving. So it was only of passing interest to both characters and audience when the lie of a way out of hopelessness was exemplified by the suicide of the alcoholic actor after a brief flirtation with hope.
The play ended as abruptly as it began, with the sense of life and lives drifting in and out of our consciousness spurned in favour of an illusory sense of ‘effectiveness’.
After my last visit to The Finborough, I suggested that once the smoking ban has arrived (in 6 weeks) this might be a good alternative venue to keep in mind. Add to that once the management has done something about the disgusting toilet facilities.
Somewhat Recommended
Saul Reichlin
London correspondent
Talk Theatre in Chicago Podcast
www.ChicagoCritic.com
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